Olympus E-510

usability, portability, price, lens, durability

100% of the reviews on Amazon.co.uk give this product a positive rating.

performance, price, usability, portability, image quality

video

98% of the reviews on Amazon.com give this product a positive rating.

Compact and lightweight design with excellent handling Surprisingly effective sensor-shift image stabilization Excellent control system (via info screen) and lots of external controls for important settings Good image quality and resolution, if not...

Dynamic Range less than competition (highlights by about three quarters of a stop; 0.7 EV) Serious highlight clipping on bright days unless you reduce exposure Small viewfinder (difficult to see fine detail, difficult to check focus, difficult to use...

I've been using the E-510 for an unusually long time - the delay in publishing this review meant I ended up living with it for several months, which allowed me to really get to know it in the same way an owner would. And my overall impression, I have...

Live View mode to compose shots with LCD Supports both Compact Flash and xD cards

Difficult access to advanced functions No manual focus switch on lens

Features wouldn't be worth much if the E-510's pictures weren't of high quality, and Olympus didn't disappoint in this respect either. Color fidelity and saturation were very good, and the E-510 handled most shooting conditions easily. At lower ISO...

Sharp, detailed images. Can use viewfinder or LCD to compose shots. Image stabilization works incredibly well, regardless of lens. Ergonomic case is comfortable to grip. Dual CF and xD slots double on-camera storage. Great wide-angle performance from...

Two-finger exposure compensation control requires some co-ordination. Default information display is quite crowded

Unlike the E-400, we had to await the successor of the E-500 for awhile. This is not so bad in itself, because the Olympus E-500 is a fine camera. Olympus has managed to combine the advantages of the E-500 with the E-410 in the new Olympus E-510, which...

So, the question is, is the Olympus E-510 worth the extra money over the E-410, which offers many of the same features including an identical 10 megapixel resolution? In terms of ergonomics, the E-510 feels slightly more comfortable to handle due to...

Small and light compared to competing designs, Excellent lens beats others in its class, Lens is sharp corner to corner, Wide range of Four-Thirds optics to choose from, Image stabilization works well, helps indoors, Live LCD preview allows shots from...

Slow startup and shut-down times, Live View mode is very slow, introducing extreme shutter lag, Optical viewfinder is small and information is displayed off to the right, rather than beneath the image, Has trouble focusing in low light, Manual focus is...